Chapter Thirteen.
How my Friend Smith and I caught a Young Tartar.
The novelty of our life in London soon began to wear off. For the first week or so I thought I never should grow weary of the wonderful streets and shops and crowds of people. And the work at the office, while it was fresh, appeared—especially when enlivened by the pranks of my fellow-clerks—more of a game than downright earnest. My eight shillings a week, too, seemed a princely allowance to begin with, and even the lodging-house in Beadle Square was tolerable.
But after a month or so a fellow gets wonderfully toned down in his notions. I soon began to pine inwardly for an occasional escape from the murky city to the fresh air of the country. The same routine of work hour after hour, day after day, week after week, grew tame and wearisome. And I began to find out that even the lordly income of eight shillings a week didn’t make the happy possessor, who had to clothe and feed himself, actually a rich man; while as for Mrs Nash’s, the place before long became detestable. The fact is, that I, with no cheerier home than Brownstroke to look back on, became desperately homesick before three months in London were over; and but for my friend Smith, I might have deserted entirely.
However, Smith, solemn as he was, wouldn’t let me get quite desperate. He was one of those even-tempered sort of fellows who never gush either with joy or sorrow, but take things as they come, and because they never let themselves get elated, rarely let themselves get down.
“Fred,” he said to me one day, when I was in the dumps, “what’s wrong?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said I, “I’m getting rather sick of London, I think.”
“Not much use getting sick of it yet,” said he. “Time enough in fifty years.”
“Jack,” said I, “if I thought I had all my life to live here, I should run away.”
“You’re a duffer, old man. Aren’t you getting on at Hawk Street, then?”
“Oh yes, well enough, but it’s most fearfully slow. The same thing every day.”
Jack smiled. “They can’t alter the programme just to suit you.”
“Of course not,” I cried, feeling very miserable; “of course I’m an ass, but I’d sooner be back at Stonebridge House than here.”
“By the way,” said Smith, suddenly, “talking of Stonebridge House, who did you think I ran against to-day at dinner-time?”
“Who, old Henniker?” I inquired.
“Rather not. If I had, I think I should have been game for running away along with you. No, it was Flanagan.”
“Was it? I should like to have seen him. What’s he doing?”
“Not much, I fancy. He says his brother’s a solicitor, and he’s come up to loaf about in his office and pick up a little law.”
“Oh, I like that,” I cried, laughing. “Think of old Flanagan a lawyer. But didn’t he say where he was living?”
“Yes, Cabbage Street, in Hackney. I forget the number. I say, Fred, suppose we take a stroll this evening and try to find him out. It’ll do you good, a walk.”
I gladly consented. We gave Mrs Nash due notice that we should not be home to supper, and might possibly be out after ten, and then sallied forth. Hackney was a good four miles from Beadle Square, and by the time we had discovered Cabbage Street it was almost time to be returning. But having come so far we were resolved we would at least make an effort to find out our old schoolfellow. But the fates were against us. Cabbage Street was a new street of small houses, about a third of a mile long. Even if we had known the number it would have taken some time to discover the house; but without that information it was simply impossible. We did try. Jack took the left of the street and began knocking at the odd numbers, starting from 229; while I attacked the even numbers on the right side. But as far as we went no one knew of a Flanagan, and we had to give it up.
It was half-past nine when we finally abandoned the search and turned our faces Citywards once more.
“Horrid sell,” said Jack. “We shall have to find out where his brother’s office is from the Directory, and get at him that way.”
We walked back hard. Mrs Nash’s temper was never to be relied on, and it was ten to one she might lock us out for the night.
Luckily Jack was up to all the short cuts, and he piloted me through more than one queer-looking slum on the way.
At last we were getting near our journey’s end, and the prospect of a “lock-out” from our lodgings was looming unpleasantly near, when Jack took me by the arm and turned up a dark narrow passage.
“I’m nearly certain it’s got a way out at the other end,” he said, “and if so it will take us right close to the square.”
I followed him, trusting he was right, and inwardly marvelling at his knowledge of the ins and outs of the great city.
But what a fearful “skeery”-looking hole that passage was!
There were wretched tumbledown houses on either side, so wretched and tumbledown that it seemed impossible any one could live in them. But the houses were nothing to the people. The court was simply swarming with people. Drunken and swearing men; drunken and swearing women; half-naked children who swore too. It was through such a company that we had to thread our way down my friend Smith’s “short cut.” As we went on it became worse, and what was most serious was that everybody seemed to come out to their doors to stare at us. Supposing there were no way through, and we had to turn back, it would be no joke, thought I, to face all these disreputable-looking loungers who already were making themselves offensive as we passed, by words and gesture.
I could tell by the way Smith strode on that he felt no more comfortable than I did.
“You’re sure there’s a way through?” I said.
“Almost sure,” he answered.
At the same moment a stone struck me on the cheek. It was not a hard blow, and the blood which mounted to my face was quite as much brought there by anger as by pain.
“Come on!” said Smith, who had seen what happened.
Coming on meant threading our way through a knot of young roughs, who evidently considered our appearance in the court an intrusion and were disposed to resent it. One of them put out his foot as Smith came up with a view to trip him, but Jack saw the manoeuvre in time and walked round. Another hustled me as I brushed past and sent me knocking up against Jack, who, if he hadn’t stood steady, would have knocked up against some one else, and so pretty certainly have provoked an assault. How we ever got past these fellows I can’t imagine; but we did, and for a yard or two ahead the passage was clear.
“Shall we make a rush for it?” I asked of Jack.
“Better not,” said he. “If there is a way through, we must be nearly out now.”
He spoke so doubtfully that my heart sunk quite as much as if he had said there was no way through and we must turn back.
However, what lay immediately before us was obscured by a suddenly collected crowd of inhabitants, shouting and yelling with more than ordinary clamour. This time the centre of attraction was not ourselves, but a drunken woman, who had got a little ragged boy by the collar, and was beating him savagely on the head with her by no means puny fist.
“There!—take that, you young—! I’ll do for you this time!”
And without doubt it looked as if we were to witness the accomplishment of the threat. The little fellow, unable even to howl, reeled and staggered under her brutal blows. His pale, squalid face was covered with blood, and his little form crouching in her grip was convulsed with terror and exhaustion. It was a sickening spectacle.
The crowd pressed round, and yelled and laughed and hooted. The woman, savage enough as she was, seemed to derive fresh vehemence from the cries around her, and redoubled her cruel blows.
One half-smothered moan escaped the little boy’s lips as she swung him off his feet, and flung him down on the pavement.
Then Jack and I could stand it no longer.
“Let the child alone!” cried Jack, at the top of his voice.
I shall never forget the sudden weird hush which followed that unexpected sound. The woman released her grasp of her victim as if she had been shot, and the crowd, with a shout on their lips, stopped short in amazement.
“Quick, Fred!” cried Jack, flying past me.
He dashed straight to where the little boy lay, swept him up in his arms, and then, with me close at his heels, was rushing straight for the outlet of the court, which, thank Heaven! was there, close at hand. Next moment we were standing in the street which led to Beadle Square.
It all took less time to accomplish than it takes to write, and once out of that awful court we could hardly tell whether we were awake or dreaming.
The boy, however, in Jack’s arms settled that question.
“Come on, quick!” said Smith, starting to run again. “They’ll be out after us.”
We hurried on until we were in Beadle Square.
“What’s to be done?” I asked.
“We must take him in with us,” said Jack. “Look at the state he’s in.”
I did look. The little fellow, who seemed about eight years old, was either stunned by his last blow or had fainted. His face, save where the blood trickled down, was deadly pale, and as his head with its shock of black hair lay back on Jack’s arm, it seemed as if he could not look in worse plight were he dead.
“We must take him with us,” said Jack.
“What will Mrs Nash say?” was my inward ejaculation, as we reached the door.
All the lights were out. We knocked twice, and no one came. Here was a plight! Locked out at this hour of night, with a half-dead child in our charge!
“Knock again,” said Jack.
I did knock again, a wonderful knock, that must have startled the cats for a mile round, and this time it called up the spirit we wished for.
There was a flicker of a candle through the keyhole, and a slipshod footstep in the hall, which gave us great satisfaction. Mrs Nash opened the door.
At the sight of our burden, the abuse with which she was about to favour us faded from her lips as she gazed at us in utter amazement.
“Why, what’s all this? eh, you two? What’s this?” she demanded.
“I’ll tell you,” said Jack, entering with his burden; “but I say, Mrs Nash, can’t you do something for him? Look at him!”
Mrs Nash was a woman, and whatever her private opinion on the matter generally may have been; she could not resist this appeal. She took the little fellow out of Jack’s arms, and carried him away to her own kitchen, where, after sponging his bruised face and forehead, and giving him a drop of something in a teaspoon, and brushing back his matted hair and loosing his ragged jacket at the neck, she succeeded in restoring him to his senses. It was with a thrill of relief that we saw his eyes open and a shade of colour come into his grimy cheeks.
“What have you been doing to him?” said Mrs Nash.
“He was being knocked about,” said Jack, modestly, “and Batchelor and I got him away.”
“And what are you going to do with him?” inquired Mrs Nash, who, now that her feminine offices were at an end, was fast regaining her old crabbedness.
“He’d better go to bed,” said Smith. “I’ll have him in my bed.”
“No, you won’t!” said Mrs Nash, decisively.
“We can’t turn him out at this time of night,” said I.
“Can’t help that. He don’t sleep here, the dirty little wretch.”
“He’ll be murdered if he goes back,” said Jack.
“That’s no reason I should have my house made not fit to live in,” said Mrs Nash.
“He won’t do any harm, I’ll see to that,” said Smith, rising and taking the boy up in his arms.
“I tell you I ain’t going to allow it,” said Mrs Nash.
But Jack without another word carried off his burden, and we heard his footsteps go slowly up the stairs to the bedroom. I stayed for some little time endeavouring to appease Mrs Nash, but without much effect. She abandoned her first idea of rushing out and defending the cleanliness of her house by force of arms, but in place of that relieved herself in very strong language on the subject of Jack Smith generally, and of me in aiding and abetting him, and ended by announcing that she gave us both warning, and we might look-out for somebody else to stand our impudence (she called it “imperence”), for she wouldn’t.
When I went up stairs Jack and his small protégé were in bed and asleep. I was quite startled when I caught sight of their two heads side by side on the pillow. It looked for all the world like a big Jack and a little Jack.
“Wouldn’t Jack be flattered if I told him so!” thought I.
I was not long in following their example. All night long I dreamt of Flanagan and that dreadful court, and of those two heads lying there side by side in the next bed.
When I awoke in the morning it was very early and not yet light. I soon discovered that what had aroused me was a conversation going on in the next bed.
“Go on! you let me be!” I heard a shrill voice say.
“Hush! don’t make a noise,” said Jack. “I’ll take you home in the morning all right.”
“I ain’t done nothink to you,” whined the boy.
“I know. No one’s going to hurt you.”
“You let me be, then; do you ’ear?” repeated the boy. “What did you fetch me ’ere for?”
“You were nearly being killed last night,” said Jack.
“You’re a lie, I worn’t,” was the polite answer.
“Yes you were,” said Jack. “A woman was nearly murdering you.”
“That was my old gal—’tain’t no concern of yourn.”
Evidently there was little use expecting gratitude out of this queer specimen of mortality; and Jack didn’t try.
“You stay quiet and go to sleep, and I’ll give you some breakfast in the morning,” he said to his graceless little bed-fellow.
“You ain’t a-going to take me to the station, then?” demanded the latter.
“No.”
“Or the workus?”
“No.”
“Or old shiny-togs?”
“Who?”
“Shiny-togs—you know—the bloke with the choker.”
“I don’t know who you mean.”
“Go on!—you know ’im—’im as jaws in the church with ’is nightgown on.”
“Oh, the clergyman,” said Jack, hardly able to repress a smile. “No. I’ll take you back to your home.”
“To my old gal?”
“Yes, to your mother.”
“You ain’t a ’avin’ a lark with me, then?”
“No,” said Jack, pitifully.
With this assurance the small boy was apparently satisfied, for he pursued the conversation no longer, and shortly afterwards I fell off to sleep again.
When next I woke it was broad daylight, and Jack Smith was standing by my bed.
“Fred, I say, he’s bolted!” he exclaimed, in an agitated voice, as I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“Who—the kid?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“He’s a nice amiable young specimen,” replied I. “When did he go?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up he was gone.”
“Well, it’s a good riddance,” said I, who really did not see why Jack should be so afflicted about such a graceless young ragamuffin. “Do you know Mrs Nash has given us both warning over this business?”
“I don’t care. But, I say, I wonder if he’s hiding anywhere.”
“Not he. He’s safe away, depend upon it, and if Mrs Nash had had any silver spoons they’d be safe away too.”
Jack began to dress thoughtfully, and then said, “I’m sorry he’s gone.”
“I don’t see why you should be,” I said. “The ungrateful young cad! If it hadn’t been for you he might have been killed.”
Jack smiled. “He doesn’t think so himself,” he said. “He told me I’d no business to interfere between him and his ‘gal,’ as he politely styles his mother. Poor little beggar! I dare say he’ll catch it all the worse now. Hullo! I say!” exclaimed Jack, feeling in his pockets. “I’m positive I had a shilling and two pennies in my pocket yesterday evening. I must have been robbed in that court!”
The money had evidently gone, and what was more, I made the pleasant discovery that a sixpence which I had in my pocket, as well as my penknife, were both missing!
Jack and I looked at one another.
“The young thief!” I exclaimed.
“Perhaps it was done in the court,” said Jack. “There was an awful crowd, you know.”
“All very well,” I replied; “but, as it happens, I had my knife out before I went to bed, to cut one of my bootlaces, and when I put it back in my pocket I distinctly remember feeling the sixpence there. No; our young hopeful’s done this bit of business.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Fred,” said Jack; “it was my fault bringing him here.”
We went down to breakfast in a somewhat perturbed state of mind. Here we found the assembled company in a state of great excitement. Mr Horncastle, who occupied a bed in the next dormitory to that where Jack and I slept, had missed his collar-stud, which he described as “red coral,” and complaining thereof to Mrs Nash, had been told by that lady that Smith and Batchelor had brought a young pickpocket into the house with them last night, and that being so, she was only surprised Mr Horncastle had not lost all the jewellery he possessed. Whereat, of course, Mr Horncastle was in a mighty state of wrath, and quite ready for poor Jack and me when we appeared.
“Oh, here you are. Perhaps you’ll hand me out half a sov., you two.”
“What for?” demanded I.
“Never you mind, but you’d better look sharp, or I’ll give you in charge!” said Horncastle, pompously.
“You’re funny this morning,” said I, utterly at a loss to guess what he was driving at.
“So will you be funny when you get transported for stealing!”
“What do you mean?” asked Smith, solemnly.
“Mean; why, I mean my collar-stud.”
A general laugh interrupted the speaker at this point, which did not tend to improve his spirits.
“What’s your collar-stud to do with me, or Batchelor?” demanded Smith, who evidently saw nothing to laugh at.
“Why, you’ve stolen it!” shouted Horncastle.
Smith gazed solemnly at the speaker.
“You’re a fool,” he said, quietly.
This cool remark drove the irate Horncastle nearly frantic. He advanced up to Smith with a face as red as the collar-stud he had lost, and cried, “Say that again, and I’ll knock you down.”
“You’re a fool,” quietly repeated Jack.
Horncastle didn’t knock him down, or attempt to do so. He turned on his heel and said, “We’ll see if we’re to be robbed by shop-boy cads, or any of your young thieving friends. I’ll complain to the police, and let them know you know all about it, you two.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said I, feeling it incumbent on me to make a remark, “except that I don’t think a red bone collar-stud costs ten shillings.” This occasioned another laugh at the expense of Mr Horncastle, who retorted, “You’re a companion of thieves and blackguards, that’s what you are. I’ll have you kicked out of the house.”
And as if to suit the action to the word, he advanced towards me and aimed a vehement kick at my person.
I had just time to dodge the blow, but as I did so something knocked against my hand. Fancy my astonishment when, stooping to pick it up, I found that it was the missing red bone collar-stud, which had dropped into the leg of its stately owner’s trousers, and which this kick had unearthed from its hiding-place!
The laugh was now all against the discomfited Horncastle. Even those who had at first been disposed to side with him against Jack and me could not resist the merriment which this revelation occasioned, particularly when the stud, which Horncastle at once identified, was discovered to be an ordinary painted bone article, with a good deal of the red worn off, of the kind usually sold in the streets for a penny.
Jack and I had at least the relief of feeling that so far we ourselves were the only sufferers by our hospitality to our little ragamuffin acquaintance.
But more was to come of this adventure, as the reader will see.